We are still in the aftermath of moving. My casita (workshop) is still full of unopened boxes. But my main saw for meteorite work is set up again and the diamond lap is set up. So I can get back to work soon. As it turned out the day after I wrote those first two sentences I had to cut a box of meteorites. About fifty stones many just in half but other large stones had to be thin sliced. So that was a good beginning for me this year at the new workshop.
The heater that did not work was repaired so it is warm in the workshop. It worked when we moved in but apparently had a small freon leak. After a month when I needed to use it the unit would not come on. Instead it threw up a F0 error code that meant call a repair specialist. It is a new house everything is under warranty. I told the construction supervisor of the problem and the next morning he had the man there to fix it. Could not ask for more. It is our first winter in the mountains and we are still adjusting to the cold. We are used to being near the beach down at LA. But it is a big 1 ton air conditioning/heating unit in the casita it is over big enough for the single room. In the summer I will be really nice and cool when it is 90+ degrees outside. Right now it is nice and cozy warm.
The snow did not last at our house after the storm one day in mid January just as this issue was coming out but it is lasting well on the mountains just a mile away.
Paul Harris and I are doing planning for the Tucson gemshow and think we are going to take a day to do some hunting while we are away from home. This year we are both in our new houses and may get to go out more often from this point. Last year I had a about a three hour drive to his house to pick him up. This year I have a three minute drive of one mile.
I am excited about the gemshow this year. I won’t be working too hard trying to get my book “Drilling for Meteorites” around to everyone that wanted copies to sell like last year. So I can spend more time looking at all the meteorites. I am especially excited to be giving a lecture on Meteor Crater’s history the evening of February 4th. This is part of a series of educational lectures that Suzanne Morrison is beginning this year. The series will continue into the future with more lectures by many individuals each being video recorded. There is to be a live video feed of each lecture on a special FaceBook page that she creates. I believe she is trying to get ten lectures done over five nights this gemshow. I am very honored to have been asked to be a part of this.
Now the great challenge is to squeeze 50,000 years of Meteor Crater’s history into a thirty minute talk with a question and answer period after. I may have to resort to magic to do that. I know one thing I have to stay on topic and move along if I let myself wander to something really interesting the audience might be forever stuck in 1921.
I created a FaceBook page to go along with the lecture for people to contact me if they wanted to. It will continue to serve as a resource after the talk for discussion, and questions or concerns about things related to Meteor Crater. So I have been putting up many posts about the Crater over the last month. It has been posts I did not want to make before because they would have been spoilers of the story in my own book. But now the FaceBook page is providing me great fun as I post these little treasures of history a few a week. The page is titled Meteor Crater History (of course) and it is open to the public. Come by often to see what is new. Here is a link.
https://www.facebook.com/Meteor-Crater-History-1891371247642400
I did not buy more than a couple meteorites since last year’s gemshow. My life was occupied with moving most of the year. But one I did buy was a 32.2 gram beautiful almost completely crusted stone from the Madagascar fall of July 27, 2018. The meteorite is official with the name Benenitra. It has three sides that are thick smooth surfaces of primary fusion crust. But it is clear that it broke up early because the rest of the surfaces though also thickly fusion crusted show a little bumpiness.
I am eager to get to the gemshow and find a few nice stones to cut and play with and maybe some other stones like the Benenitra to just sit and wonder upon.
I have really been missing my extreme close up photography time every few days. I have the rig reassembled from moving but don’t have enough room to set it up so I can work with it. That is my goal in the next few days. I have over a dozen slivers of meteorites mounted but I never ground and polished them into thin sections by the time we moved. When I find those in some box I can create hours of fun for myself making the thin sections. Then I will have days of fun with the camera imaging chondrules and other exciting stuff. I think maybe one more month of unpacking and organizing in the house will set me free to begin the long process of getting the garage in order and my workshop finished. Maybe by the next issue of Meteorite Times I can include some images of the shop.
I hope for everyone that 2019 is a safe and prosperous good year.
